Rant & Rave: Glitter Top Coats (Nail Polish)

This Week’s Topic: Glitter Top Coats (Nail Polish)

Share: Tell us what you love, hate, or are otherwise indifferent to about glittery top coats for your nails! Worth the removal time? Not your thing?

my answer: So much of the beauty of a glitter top coat is in the eye of the beholder… just more so than regular polish, because you have to like not just colors, but the composition, as well as know how you’d layer it.

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I love how they can turn even the plainest nail polish into a really awesome-looking mani. The only downside I can think of is that they’re a bit hard to remove and that you need a bunch of different top coats if you want to keep your nail art varied and interesting.

It took me a few years to warm up to super glittery nail polish. I had to find the proper removal techniques.

The foil removal method looks dumb but makes glitter polish removal easy. For notoriously stubborn glitter polishes I use a ‘base coat’ of Elmer’s glue. My nails are protected from the damage glitter nail polish can wreck. The removal is easy, just pick at the nail polish a bit with a cuticle/orange stick and then start peeling.

I love microglitters, or a single color, that’s dense & uniform in the base, and worn as a monochromatic look (ie, red glitter over red polish). I feel these are the most appropriate ways for *me* to wear glitter. When I was (alot) younger, I was more daring & creative, but I’ve scaled back.

I also don’t care for larger glitters, flakies, or “shapes”, as I find those to look a bit less sophisticated, and I have neither the time, nor patience to sit and position all the specks.

I think it’s super fun, but it feels silly for daily wear. It either feels a bit young, or a bit too fancy, depending on the application.

That doesn’t stop me from loving it for weekends.

I like to concentrate the glitter specs at the base of the nail, which I think looks more sophisticated, but if you do the glitter too thick, it will overlap the cuticle, and peel right off because it’s not sticking to the nail.

Truly, you’d think that Essie, Zoya, OPI .. any one of these companies would make either a nail polish remover for glitter polish or a glitter polish that would come off easily with regular nail polish.

I have to admit that I’m a huge huge fan of glitter and shimmer just in general, being a high school student.

My biggest annoyance with glitter top coats are the ones with different sized glitter that doesn’t properly come out of the bottle. Like the ones that have both micro glitter and chunky glitter, but all you get are the micro glitter. I generally also don’t like covering ALL my nails with glitter because it’s just super distracting and overwhelming that way.

Hate, Hate… did I say hate? Sometimes it can look decent at best, but still a bit too elementary for my taste. Wow, I just realized how snobby that sounded. Ah well… even if I liked the way it looked I can’t get past how impossible it is to remove. Rant over

I LOVE glitter! Micro, shapes, mixed, you name it. And I love that if I mess up a mani (dings, chips, smudges) I can just get some glitter on the situation and you can’t even tell. It’s a bear to remove, but it’s worth it.

I LOVE me some glitters … shimmer, flecked, string, round, square, hex, holo, duo etc. If it sparkles and blings, I’m all about it! Did I mention I LOVE me some glitter polishes??!

I rarely wear a basic colour. If I do it’s for a day or two and then I add a glitter polish. Sometimes I just do the accent fingers (left ring finger and right index finger). Sometimes I glitter only the tips. Sometimes only the moons. Sometimes only the sides. Sometimes a full on glitter samich (base jelly colour, glitter and the same base jelly colour). Sometimes a saran wrap mani (randomly placed glitter). Sometimes I pair glitters … blue base with blue glitter, black nails with white glitter and white nails with black glitter etc. Sometimes so random it’s like WHOA, glitter bomb explosion. However the mood hits me. My last experiment made my nails look like the ocean. I had so many compliments and it was done totally by accident.

For me, removal is a snap! I use pure acetone and depending on my mood, foil method or Orly Gel & Glitter Nail Lacquer Pocket Removers (found at Sally’s).

Glitter can also save a mani. Dent a nail? Add some glitter! Tired of your mani but can’t get to the shop? Add some glitter. Glitter is a fantastic way to add some oompfh to a mani.

I have no Indie glitters. As pretty as they are, I can easily dupe most with the polishes I already have or I can add in my own glitters. My fav brands (found at Sallys) are Art Club and Cina.

I actually like glitter nail polishes. Sometimes, I wear them on their own, especially the holographic ones. But I must admit, some of the glitter polishes are top coat thirsty, and removing them is a pain in the ass.

I love them for a couple of reasons. I lean to a monochromatic look with them. If I’m wearing a purple I use a purple glitter on top. I feel it gives my polish look a little more depth. What I love even more is if I’m in need of a fresh polish change and don’t have time to do it right away, putting a glitter polish over the one that needs some help, extends the wear of my manicure.

Given this I put up with the take off aggravation they can create. I’ll use a jar polish remover with the sponge inside and let them soak a little more. Makes them less aggravating to take off.

I LOVE glitters! Any type or shapes of glitter. Even just plain dipping my nail in a pot of glitter and putting a topcoat. It is a pain to take off so I usually do the Elmer’s glue method. Or regular pure acetone remover.
I am still in love with accent nail trend so my daily mani is a plain color with a matching glitter accent nail. This way I can get the glitter I want and it is not to hard to take off since it is just one finger on each hand.

As a person who’s been dumping all manner of glitter into nail polish since the 90s I love love love that there are soo many options now. It’s a million times better than what I ended up with prior. The quality and color choices are there.
Yes they are an immense pain in the bottoms to remove, but I also feel that my mani lasts a lot longer than if they were glitter free.